Chapter 26: Searching Shadows.
The air was crisp, the kind of cold that bit at the skin but wasn’t quite enough to be unbearable. The sky was a dull gray, threatening rain, but never delivering. The streets were quiet this early in the morning, the city still waking up, and Xavier found himself walking without real direction, cigarette perched between his lips, the smoke curling into the air like whispers of thoughts he didn’t want to acknowledge.
He wasn’t sure why he was doing this.
Cavier had given him a month off—an entire month to rest, to breathe, to do whatever the hell he wanted. And yet, instead of taking advantage of the rare freedom, he was here, moving through old streets, revisiting places that weren’t his, chasing after a ghost that shouldn’t matter.
Maybe it was guilt. M
